Chattanooga 2.0 Goes to v2.0

Chattanooga 2.0 Goes to v2.0

Logo Design

In 2015, a report was published citing that an estimated 80 percent of living-wage jobs in Hamilton County will require a two-year or four-year degree or some type of technical credential by 2025. The report also brought to light the statistic that only 38% of citizens met that requirement at that time. Understandably, over 3,700 Chattanoogans spoke up in concern regarding the lack of skilled workers available to fill incoming jobs in Hamilton County. In response to this feedback, the Chattanooga 2.0 coalition was formed.

In 2020, the new Executive Director enacted a new strategy of “Collective Impact.” Collective impact is a multi-sector, collaborative approach to change systems and solve deep-rooted community challenges. By building long-term alignment in order to address problems at their root cause, we can improve outcomes at the population level.

Widgets & Stone designed a new logo to help Chattanooga 2.0 turn the page and open doors to a new era.

Creative Direction: Paul Rustand; Design: Travis Hitchcock.

Niedlov’s Rebrand

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Love to Knead, Knead to Love II

Niedlov’s Rebrand

Inspired by trips overseas, Niedlov’s new owner Erik Zilen tasked us with updating their look in hopes of recreating the transportive feeling that comes with setting foot inside the same venerable bakeries he visited in Europe.

The challenge was to update one of Main Street’s most recognizable, and established logos and create something that was going to walk the fine line between being refreshing and new, while also still retaining the timelessness of the previous logo. And to update an original logo that we designed in 2004.

The end result was a wordmark inspired by the handcrafted, old-world typefaces seen in documents from the late 1700s, paired with a color system that showcases the unique ingredients that have made Niedlov’s a Chattanooga staple for the past twenty-plus years.

Creative Direction: Paul Rustand; Design: Mark Slawson, Travis Hitchcock.

Here When You Need Us Most

Here when you need us most

Alleo Brand Identity

Hospice of Chattanooga has had a long and strong history providing patients and their loved ones a full spectrum of compassionate care. Over the past couple years the organization has grown – in addition to hospice and palliative care, they now also offer pediatric and perinatal programs for children facing life-limiting illness.

The board and leadership of Hospice of Chattanooga has also been expanding the nonprofit family of service organizations in Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina. With this growth, Hospice of Chattanooga found it needed a new brand system to unite its variety of organizations and services.

Widgets & Stone worked closely with the leadership team to create Alleo Health System, the umbrella brand for all the organizations. A new logo and complete identity system was put into place to unify the different services and locations across the southeast.

Web, advertising, signage, business stationery systems, videos and more have been part of the complete rebrand.

Creative Direction: Paul Rustand; Design Direction: Liz Tapp; Design: Travis Hitchcock, Mark Slawson, Athene Ruiz, John Le, Ben Dicks; Writing: Jacob Biba; Photography: Dotson Commercial.

Networking Magic

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Network Transport

Web site design

Network Transport offers truckload, less-than-truckload, and intermodal transportation services, along with warehousing for customers of all types. As an asset-based operation they have a competitive advantage in the industry. Not only do they manage and maintain their equipment, they also have a vast network of over 15,000 qualified local, regional, and national carrier partners.

Network Transport saw impressive growth as a company due to the excellent quality of their service – but their web site was not reflecting that quality to customers. Widgets & Stone designed a beautifully simple site that presents the Network Transport brand in manner that reflects their expertise and service.

Creative Direction: Paul Rustand; Designer: Athene Ruiz; Writing: Jacob Biba.

One Small Step for Design

One Small Step for Design

One slightly bigger step for brand

After seeing very successful sales of several “vintage inspired” collectible tin products, the MoonPie® marketing team thought that its retail packaging might benefit from the same design treatment. With the company’s 100th anniversary approaching, drawing inspiration from the past felt quite appropriate.

But the MoonPie marketing team was also wary about making any redesign too dramatic, as it had seen sales slump years before during a complete design overhaul. They asked Widgets & Stone to create a new look that felt both vintage and similar to what MoonPie® customers were used to seeing on the shelves.

The creative team took small steps to make the design simpler and more historic in feel, while helping take slightly larger steps to advance the overall brand style. 

Creatie Direction: Paul Rustand; Design: Travis Hitchcock.

Now in Hi-Fi

Now in Hi-Fi

Logo update for Clyde’s 

When the Monen Family Restaurant Group founded Clyde’s in the old Clyde’s Auto Shop building, they simply hoped to make a great local restaurant and bar. But when they saw how popular it was, they decided to transport the concept to other cities (like neighboring Nashville). But in doing so, they found they needed to draw a distinction between their Clyde’s and the well-established Clyde’s Restaurant Group on the east coast. So they changed the name to Hi-Fi Clyde’s.

Since Widgets & Stone had created the original Clyde’s concept (a flexible system based on the existing Clyde’s Auto signage), we were asked to update the logo. So of course we kept it right in line with the brand personality that makes HiFi Clyde’s so awesome.

Click on images to see a larger view.

Design: Travis Hitchcock.

Happy Family, Happy Design

Happy Family, Happy Design

A redesign for a trio of sites

Danielle Alvarez Greer is known professionally as “The Happy Family Coach.” She is the co-founder and owner of The Reality Formula for Kids and the Happy Kid Toolkit. 

The Reality Formula for Kids is a child-friendly model for conflict resolution that facilitates team building. It positions challenges as growth opportunities, rather than problems. This formula is utilized in the Happy Kid Toolkit, which is a sort of board game: a training tool that provides an opportunity for self-discovery and a solution to the challenging situations that children will inevitably face as they grow. 

As Danielle prepared to launch her new Toolkit product, she realized she needed a more unified and functional family of web sites to help her coordinate – and distinguish — her related products and services. Liz Tapp led the comprehensive redesign of all three sites, integrating a variety of videos and tools into Squarespace templates. Keely Hungate of 26 Tools led the messaging strategy and writing for the new sites.

The end result is a cohesive and an organized set of sites, all clearly part of the same family of brands. See a video walkthrough of the site features here.

Art Direction, Design, Photography and Production: Liz Tapp.

Bringing Life(style) to the Bleachers

Bringing Life(style) to the Bleachers

Catalog redesigns

Sister companies NRS and GT Grandstands commissioned Widgets & Stone to update their product catalogs. Lead designer Laura Michael added life (and style) to the new materials by simplifying the layout and utilizing dynamic new photography from Dotson Commercial. The clean typography and orderly layout go a long way to making the catalogs both contemporary and functional.

Design Director: Paul Rustand; Designer: Laura Michael; Photographer: Grant Dotson, Dotson Commercial.

Putting the UI in Woople

Putting the UI in Woople

Woople Client User Interface

Woople is an online learning tool designed to promote effective and efficient training of employees. Frustrated by the complexity of learning management systems, Woople founder Paul Cummings decided to create something better. In 2009, he launched Woople – designed for both large and small organizations to deliver video-based educational material with detailed reporting. Functioning like an internal YouTube, Woople saves companies across America money while providing a secure and efficient way for employees to learn. 

After several years of implementation, Woople’s development team asked Widgets & Stone to help update the user interface. The team designed an elegantly simple and user-friendly interface.

Creative Direction: Paul Rustand; Design: Brad Dicharry, Amy Harmon; Development by Rodger Maarfi & the Woople team.

Making Play Work

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Making Play Work

2016 Play & Park Catalog Redesign

Play & Park Structures knows that playgrounds are an integral part of childhood development. The Playcore company strives to provide high quality products that inspire children’s imaginations and creativity through innovation and superior product design.

Play & Park was finding their catalog design had become a little too playful and whimsical, making it a bit difficult for sales people and customers to use.

The Widgets & Stone team, led by Mandy Meredith and Liz Tapp, stepped in to help simplify and clarify the catalog design. A clean and functional system was set in place – letting the playgrounds speak for themselves while information became easier to find and read.

Creative Direction: Mandy Meredith; Design Direction: Liz Tapp; Designers: Amy Harmon, Liz Tapp, Laura Michael; Photography: Play & Park.

Lovely & Delicious

Lovely & Delicious

New Web Design for Chadwick Boyd

Chadwick Boyd has one mission: to change the world for good through food and words. He has been in the consumer food and storytelling world for more than 20 years. He regularly appears on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS and networks, like Lifetime, and was a featured guest on the PBS special, Heirloom Meals. In addition to being TV talent, developing recipes and writing, Chadwick owns and manages a brand consulting practice that collaborates to develop business and product innovations and build strategic relationship networks for food and lifestyle brands. 

Chadwick’s belief that “innovation and collaboration creates a better and more delicious world for all of us” was put into practice as he worked with Widgets & Stone to redesign his web site.

Together with Chadwick and the web development team (and a handful of trusted advisers), Mandy Meredith and Amy Harmon worked through several design iterations to land in just the right place for the Chadwick brand. All the hard work done by the design team – along with developers Bill Brock and Brett Wise – resulted in a comprehensive new design that works on tablets and smart phones as well as on desktops.

A rousing endorsement of the redesign came from the head of entertainment at a prominent network:

“That site says that you are an established brand and folks are going to think ‘Why don’t I know him?’ You come across better than your competitors because you pop more. Your site feels more vibrant.”

chadwickboydlifestyle.com

Creative Direction: Mandy Meredith; Design: Amy Harmon; Web Development: Bill Brock V, Brett Wise; Photography: Alli Royce Soble, Sweetlife Photography, Josh Okun.

Un-Untouchable

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Un-Untouchable

Dalit Freedom Network

In the world’s largest democracy, 250 million Dalit people are denied freedom, justice, and human dignity, because they are considered worthy only to be enslaved, broken, crushed. Untouchable. But after 3,000 years of oppression, they are standing up for the rights of their children to live in freedom and dignity.

Their leaders asked for our help in bringing their need, and new hope, to the world’s attention—as well as help in positioning to help build schools that are open to all children, 
bring healthcare to communities, and develop economic opportunities, and advocate for their safety. Working with 26 Tools, we joined a team of international development researchers, writers, designers, and web developers to help shine a light on remarkable people changing their own lives, and talk about ways that we can come alongside them

In looking at the landscape of social action, 26 Tools identified two mistakes to avoid: 1) slapping a sleepy Western public with a message of Wake up!, which puts too much focus on the organization as cultural prophet, and 2) celebrity endorsements and activism as a culture of cool, which puts too much focus on the donor as change agent.

Both of these approaches cheapen the suffering of real people, and can erode an organization’s credibility. So over the course of 5 months, we shaped a messaging system that highlights real interactions with freed people. Emphasizing both good words and good work, talk and action.

Dalit Freedom Network USA requested a complete rebrand, and Widgets & Stone delivered solid design solutions. While the international headquarters agreed that single brand solution was wise, they requested that it be built on the already established logo. So the team revisited concepts and revised designs to make it work.

Whiteboard built on writing and design styles developed to completely rebuild the web site: www.dalitnetwork.org

Creative Direction: Caleb Ludwick, Paul Rustand; Design: Amy Harmon, Benjamin Dicks; Writing: Caleb Ludwick; Development Research & Consulting: Emily Talley; Web Design & Development: Whiteboard; Photography: provided by the client.

Need vs Want

Need vs Want

Bridge Partners Brand Refresh

Bridge Partners, an executive search firm with unique expertise in attracting and retaining senior, diverse management, was approaching its ten year anniversary, and the partners felt it was time to update their web site. Having just seen the new brand and site for the Benwood Foundation, partner Tory Clarke asked Widgets & Stone and Tubatomic to help.

Bridge Partners was not interested in changing their logo, but they did want a fresh approach to typography and colors in their new site design. Widgets & Stone saw an opportunity to update the logo without losing its essence, and spent some time reimagining the mark while exploring type, color and potential photo treatments as well.

The brief design exercise was extremely well received, resulting in the refreshed design concept being selected as the new logo. Tubatomic will implement the core brand elements into a new site design to launch at the end of April 2014.

Creative Direction: Paul Rustand; Design: D.J. Trischler.

Modern Design, for Your Feet

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Goodhew/Sockwell Web Redesign

The US manufacturers of Goodhew lifestyle socks and Sockwell graduated compression socks have been steadily growing. While their products are well designed and exceptional, their brand communications weren’t reflecting that quality. 

They turned to Widgets & Stone and 26 Tools for help with brand communications needs, and specifically for a redesign of their two product web sites. As 26 Tools worked to develop delightful and informative brand messaging, Widgets & Stone worked to develop a library of lifestyle photography and new design styles.

Previous versions of the web sites tended to be heavy on information and light on product imagery.

Widgets & Stone worked with Dotson Studios to create new photography that captured the lifestyle spirit of the brand and showed the product in use.

Then the team developed a clean web design that shows off the wonderful socks and the great lifestyle photography. Web site information was consolidated and the navigation was simplified.

Creative Direction: Paul Rustand; Design Direction: Mandy Meredith; Brand Messaging Strategy & Writing: Caleb Ludwick, 26 Tools; Design: Ben Dicks, Amy Trumbull; Photography: Dotson Studios.